Tweezer review - 09/18/99 Coors Amphitheatre, Chula Vista, California

Date: Sat, 09 Sep 2000 12:08:22 -0700
From: Charles Dirksen cdirksen@earthlink.net
To: rmp@archive.phish.net
Subject: 9/18/99 Chula Vista Tweezer
 
09/18/99 Coors Amphitheatre, Chula Vista, California
 
Tweezer opened this show.  It's a touch on the slow side.. slower than
usual. Opening is straightforward.  The Ebeneezer lyric doesn't come
in until 4:30 or so.  Typical mayhem surrounds it (but no screaming
from the band members, as in versions of old).  Jam segment begins at
5:05.  Trey lets loose a flurry of digital delay loops.
 
The jam is incredibly textural for the opening few minutes, like many
of the tweezer-jams from the last few years.  A "wall of sound" with a
host of melodic layers.  What sets this jam over and apart from the
others, though, is Trey's melodic, soulful soloing above this wall of
sound, and Mike's remarkably gorgeous accompaniment.  By the 10 min
point, the jam is in the midst of an enchantingly harmonic bridge of
sorts, driven in part by a simple but catchy riff that Trey repeats.
 
This jam soon segues into a more chaotic, frenzied jam, very similar
in character to the finest part of the 9/9/99 Tweezer (so if you like
this Tweezer, you *Must* IMO hear the 9/9/99 version).  Trey's
Languedoc hollowbody screeches and spits in this fiery jam (see also
the 10/30/98 Tweezer jam segment)!  There's even some Eddie Van
Halen-like trilling for a measure or so around the 13 minute point.
Around 13:30 the bottom drops out and though Fish continues to kick
out a good tweezeresque rhythm, you know the direction is a'changin',
since there's not much going on from Mike, Page and Trey.  Nothing to
speak of, actually... and then Fish drops out completely by 14:10.
And that's it for this Tweezer.  Huh.
 
This Tweezer could have had a finer ending, to be sure (this ending
was weak, IMO.. it just.. ended).  But the jam segment was definitely
a WINNER.  Have to give this an 8.0 rating, on a par with 9/9/99, even
though I think 9/9/99 arguably has the edge since there was a lot more
to the version as a whole.  (but then again, this 9/18 Tweezer was
short but very Sweet...=^)
 
two cents,
charlie
 

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